


Icy Force Both Foul and Fair

by HathorAroha



Series: Frozen Fandom Month Stories [3]
Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Canon - Movie, Duos Week, F/M, Gen, Mention of Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4308027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HathorAroha/pseuds/HathorAroha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone outside the ice palace with Olaf, it would've been the perfect time to tell him the fatal effects of summer on snowmen. Yet, he finds he cannot, and not just because he knows Anna would wallop him if he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icy Force Both Foul and Fair

He could’ve told Olaf now about the fatal effects of summer on snowmen. Anna had disappeared into the ice palace to “talk to her sister”, leaving Olaf and Kristoff out in the cold--literally and figuratively. Elsa had a thing about being introduced to men. And dirt.

Kristoff slumped on the top step outside the palace entrance, Olaf plopping down beside him.

“One...two...three...”

Kristoff could’ve told Olaf that “wait a minute” was figurative. It was just a saying--”wait a minute” could really be “wait five minutes”. Even so, the ice harvester couldn’t bring himself to explain. If their first introduction to Olaf was anything to go by, the snowman would probably ask “why?” a million times again.

“Four...five...six...”

Kristoff, still in a pout over not being allowed entrance into the ice palace, spontaneously began counting the minute down with Olaf. Just going along with it was probably easier than explaining to a simple snowman the concept of “figures of speech”.

“Twelve...thirteen...fourteen...”

How slow was their minute? Or was the count down too quick? How was Anna going inside, talking to Elsa? Was it succeeding? Or was it failing--as Kristoff half-suspected it might do?

“Nineteen...twenty...” 

He knew Anna had a bad habit of leaping without looking, listening to impulse over caution. Nevertheless, Anna had surprised him a good few times too. She had a way of being able to think fast and improvise. She could be quick to warm up to someone once they earned her trust--and no-one else had warmed up to him like Anna did.

“Thirty-four...thirty-five...”

Was Olaf really going to count to sixty seconds?

_Just play along,_ Kristoff told himself, _then maybe you can tell him._

Maybe he could warn him about the adverse effects of heat on snowmen too. Hey, Anna wasn’t here to stop him.

_But then he’ll probably tell Anna I told him._

He already knew it would be folly and potentially life-threatening to make the princess mad. He much preferred to keep himself in Anna’s good graces.

“Forty-seven...forty-eight...”

Yep. The snowman was clearly set on counting up to sixty. He was rather cheerful too--how could anyone be so happy after being denied entry into a palace built of _pure ice_? Heaves knew Kristoff wasn’t.

“Fifty.”

Olaf practically danced on the spot in excitement, like a little child unaware of the seriousness of what the adults were discussing or doing. Too young to be rudely thrown into adulthood while still on the playground.

“Fifty-five...fifty-SIX!” Olaf skipped to the ajar doors. “I’m going in! Fifty-seven--”

And then the doors shut, leaving the ice harvester alone on the steps. He still hadn’t told Olaf it had been a figure of speech nor that a summer’s day can kill snowmen.

Because Kristoff remembered being a child--thrown into adulthood at about seven or eight when he had seen his parents frozen to death. He remembered trying to wake them up, even snuggling between them, falling asleep, tears freezing on his cheeks.He could still recall, clear as day, some old ice harvester roughly shaking him awake, tobacco sent on his fingertips. Kristoff, still a wee spot of a lad, had been forced to leave his dead parents behind, his only friend now his reindeer, Sven, until the trolls adopted them into their huge clan.

Kristoff knew why he hadn’t told Olaf. He might joke all he wished about telling him about heat’s tendency to melt frozen things, but he knew he didn’t have the heart for it. His past and that boy of his memories would never let him do something so callous to a child--even if the “child” was a snowman with a child’s thinking.

Then--a foreboding chill prickled his spine, pulling him out of these somber musings. Pushing himself upright, he stared up at the second storey of the palace. He couldn’t see much, but some instinct--the instinct of an ice harvester--told him something was _wrong._ Anna. Something seemed to have gone horribly wrong.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Kristoff rushed to the doors--which opened of their own accord--and tore inside, stopping when he saw that the first floor was empty. Then he saw a stairway leading up to the second floor, where, above him, he could hear raised voices and--the familiar howling of a blizzard. Blizzards were bad news outside, but an _indoors blizzard?_ He didn’t know when he had started to run, slipping on the icy floor, feet pounding up the stairs, heart hammering as much from excursion as from exercise, only one thought in mind: Anna.

Two thirds up the way, Kristoff heard extra feet coming up the steps. Kristoff stopped just long enough to look back at his follower--it was Olaf, clamoring up after him.

Then, right there, at the top of the stairwell, he saw Anna, crouched over, slumping to the ground in pain. Even from where he stood, Kristoff could hear her staggered breathing--or was that Queen Elsa’s? Though he knew Elsa was there, all Kristoff could see was Anna, Anna, _Anna._

Nothing else mattered now, except to run--or, rather, slide--to Anna, to see if she was hurt. He didn’t want to feel so helpless in the face of possible mortality as he had once, long ago. For the first time in forever, one princess, not ice, was his life.

Just that one image of Anna seared into his memories, as vivid as the memory of his parents’ frozen bodies, betrayed by the very force of nature that once had been their friend.


End file.
